


Mischief and Meaning

by thingsKTsays



Series: Forged Together [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gwen and Leon are adorable, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:38:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1464559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsKTsays/pseuds/thingsKTsays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are 15 and 13, 10 and 8, 13 and 11, 9 and 7. But above all, they are Leon and Gwen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mischief and Meaning

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for the 2014 Untold Legends rarepair fest, and it could not have happened at all without the wonderful Zoe, who is my other half.
> 
> While this fic can standalone, it really is much more of a prologue of sorts to me. The rest should be up in a couple of days, so if you enjoy this I strongly recommend you subscribe to the series!

Gwen had spent so long watching Tom, her father, forge swords for the armoury that she thought it would be easy. She waited until Elyan was out, playing with the other boys from the Lower Town, before asking her father if she could use scrap metal from the forge. She didn’t want Elyan to hear what she was planning, sure that he would tease her for it (at fifteen, just two years older than her, he had the habit of thinking all her ideas were silly) and discourage her.  


She didn’t need any further discouragement; she was already nervous about her planned gift as it was.  


When Tom smiled after Gwen told him what she wanted to do and said _yes, of course, sweetheart_ , a bit of confidence trickled its way into her heart. If her father, the strongest and smartest man she knew, thought she could do it then it didn’t matter what her silly brother might think. She could do this.  


She could forge Leon a new sword his birthday, the first sword that was his and his alone, not borrowed from the armoury to spar with the Prince, not a relic from his father’s youth to use until he ‘grew into a man’. She knew it bothered him that all of his friends had swords made just for them when they had turned fourteen, and when his birthday passed last year he was heartbroken that the small offering of gifts hadn’t included one.  


Gwen intended to fix this. She would have asked her father to craft her a sword, but _it wouldn’t mean anything_ if she didn’t make it herself, with no help. She gathered all of the scrap metal her father could spare and went to work.  


It was hard, so much harder than she had expected. Her arms shook with the effort, but she kept going, trying to find a rhythm in the process. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t get the metal to fold together evenly. The balance would always be off, she could tell. It was the ugliest sword she had ever seen.  


But still. She had made it. She poured all of her strength and affection and care into the sword, and she thought maybe Leon would understand. He didn’t want the perfect sword – he wanted a sword just for him.  


And ugly as it looked, as horrible a sword as it would make, that’s what this was.  


A sword, forged out of love by Gwen, just for Leon.

\---

_His mother thought that meeting children outside of the castle would be good for him, so Leon traveled down to the Lower Town by himself for the first time, looking for young boys to play fight with. If he was lucky, they might even cause trouble without his parents finding out, which sounded like a perfect afternoon to Leon._  


_His friends at the castle play fight with him, but getting into trouble with little Lordlings (as his Mother calls them) and Princes (just one, really, but Arthur has enough energy to count as two princes) wasn’t much fun. The boys either refused to break the rules or took their lecture and stared at the floor when they were caught._  


_Leon wanted to cause trouble; he wanted to knock over a bushel of apples and hide a frog in one of the clay jars being sold, and when a merchant spotted him, he wanted to run and run, laughing madly with a friend by his side, until they hid in the stables, giggling and out of breath._  


_He looked for other boys in the market, but only found a girl who looked slightly younger than him. Leon didn’t know many girls, but Morgana had moved to the castle a couple of months ago, and though she seemed mostly sad, she had a glint to her eyes that Leon hoped might mean mischief._  


_And if Morgana – the King’s ward – liked mischief, then why wouldn’t this girl from the Lower Town?_

\---

It really was a horrible sword, and Gwen tried to convince Leon not to actually practice with it.  


“It’s terrible, and you’re more likely to hurt yourself with it than any imaginary enemies, Leon.” Her father hadn’t had time to help her braid her hair back that day, and the slight wind kept pulling her curls messily across her face.  


A couple of knights were going through their paces a short distance away, seemingly involved in their movements, but Gwen knew of these particular knights. They wouldn’t hesitate to mock a young noble clumsily wielding a sword as poorly-made as Leon’s. The last thing Gwen wanted was for her gift to humiliate him.  


“The sword is perfect, Gwen. Well, I – I mean – not, not perfect, really, it _is_ kind of – of – uneven.” Leon was so adorable when he got tongue-tied and stuttered. His cheeks flushed red, and he let his loose blond curls fall over his eyes as though if he couldn’t see her, she couldn’t see his embarrassment. Gwen knew he got even more flustered if she drew attention to it, if she made as if she had noticed that his boyhood style of speech had slipped through, so she simply smiled softly until he focussed his thoughts again.  


“Any imperfections it might have, Gwen, mean nothing.” Normally Leon’s blush faded once he had full control of his words again. Gwen watched, smitten, as the rosy colour spread across his cheeks and down to his neck. Leon’s fingers clenched tight around the hilt of the hideous sword she had forged for him. He didn’t hide his eyes from her.  


“You made it, just for me. It may not be perfect, but it _is_ perfect to me.”  


Gwen felt as if she had held her face too close to the forge.  


Her stomach clenched, but in a good way.

\---

_Gwen was good at finding trouble with Leon, but she was better at keeping him so distracted he forgot that last summer, on his ninth birthday, he had sworn up and down that his life-calling was to be a bandit knight. Causing a ruckus was in his blood, he claimed, and when he told that to Gwen – petulant because he had just realized that it had been a whole week since they’d done anything his parents wouldn’t approve of – she had laughed softly before asking if he wanted to run away to the forest with her for the afternoon._  


_“I’ll even let you protect me!” She said it as if she was offering Leon something huge, and_ she was. _Because Leon had tried time and time again to act like the a knight around her, to put into practice the vows he hoped to someday live his life by, only to have Gwen shut him down each time._  


_“I got myself into this trouble, Leon, and I’ll get myself out of it, too!” She’d always say, as though he actually thought she_ needed _his protection. Leon couldn’t tell if she objected to the idea of needing protection in general, or if she just didn’t want him to think she was weak. If that was what she thought, then she had it all wrong._  


_Leon didn’t want to protect her because he thought she was weak. He wanted to protect her because she was important to him._  


_He may have only been a boy, ten years old, but he already knew that he would do anything for the people he cared about._  


_So they ran away to the forest, legs pumping as if they had just stolen a handful of sweetmeats, their laughter echoing across the clearing until it was swallowed by the trees._  


_A patch of yellow wildflowers was in bloom beside them when they stopped to catch their breath, and Leon plucked the one with the most beautiful petals and handed it to her._  


_“It – It reminds me. O-of you.”_  


_He was too shy to tell her what he really meant._

\---

The sword broke. Gwen knew it was only a matter of time; the integrity of the metal wasn’t strong enough to actually withstand an impact with a training dummy, let alone another blade. Especially when that sword belonged to the Prince and was crafted to the highest standard.  


She was gathering water from the well near the training fields when it happened. The rhythmic clanging of swords gave way to muffled cursing, and when she looked over Leon was kneeling on the ground, holding a piece of his sword in each hand.  


He looked devastated.  


Arthur, bless him, didn’t laugh or say anything mean. He just put a consoling hand on Leon’s shoulder, and Gwen ducked a bit behind the water pump. Leon wouldn’t want her to see this, she knew.  


Whatever Arthur said to Leon seemed to work, because he looked up at his friend hopefully before standing, holding both pieces of the sword carefully in his hands.  


Gwen walked away then, lugging her bucket full of water back home. The sword broke, but that was okay. She had expected it to happen, sooner or later. It was just a sword, in the way that the flower he had picked for her when they were kids was just a flower.  


The flower had long dried out, yellow fading to a soft brown as time wore on, petals turning crisp and delicate as it died.  


The sword was broken, but Gwen still had that first flower (because there had been a number of them since, all handed to her shyly, but that had been the _first_ ). Wrapped in the softest cloth she could find, she kept it hidden in her room.  


The sword was broken, but that didn’t mean Leon was going to throw it away.  


The sword, the flower, all the little things they had given each other over the years - they might be _things_ , but they had _meaning_.  


That was the important part.

\---

_If sorcery weren’t a horrible curse, then Leon would swear that Gwen was a witch._  


_There had to be something magical about how she could make him laugh even on the stormiest of days with nothing but her bright grin and a whispered conversation as they crossed paths in the market, each rushing to complete their errands._  


_A bracelet at the stall next to the pastries he was there to buy caught his attention._  


_It had small charms that glinted in the sun, flowers and suns and swords, framed by wooden beads. The leather that they were threaded on was soft, and the sizing looked perfect for her slight wrists._  


_Pastries forgotten, Leon dug into the coin purse his father had given him, coins carefully counted out to allow him to buy a treat._  


_If this was magic, then it was not the same magic that the King warned about._  


_This was magic that brought a smile to his face and a blush to his cheeks._  


_Magic or not, Leon wouldn’t give it up for anything._


End file.
